


Down in This Heart of Mine

by cinderfell



Series: A Space in Your Heart [1]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: A Healthy Dollop of Slowburn, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Background Kash/Keyleth, Background Vax/Gilmore, F/M, Friends to Lovers, I hope y'all like toothache inducing fluff, I tossed all my favorite tropes in a blender and this fic was the outcome, Long-Distance Friendship, Long-Distance Relationship, Online Relationship, POV Alternating, like extremely background but they are mentioned on occasion, that occasionally dips down into sappy territory
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-22
Updated: 2017-05-08
Packaged: 2018-09-25 08:33:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,681
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9811481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cinderfell/pseuds/cinderfell
Summary: Getting repeatedly sniped by the same person while she's trying to play her favorite game is not how Vex expects to make a peculiar new friend, but she's grateful for Percival's companionship nonetheless.Or, a story about distance.





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so, this fic is a labor of love and is me experimenting with multichapter fics-- and it's already the longest fic i've ever written. amazing.
> 
> this is super self-indulgent and is basically me taking all of my favorite tropes and putting them together to appease my need for fluffy slowburn for these two, so bear with me.
> 
> i also can't promise an update schedule, but i'll try my best to update as frequently as possible.
> 
> the title comes from "overtime" by seafret, which is one of my favorite songs for these two.

Vex really should be asleep.

It would be a good night for sleep, honestly. Her neighbors next door aren’t arguing for once and the elderly woman above isn’t blasting her television at full volume. It’s warm for January, and a nighttime storm has blown through Emon with rain instead of snow. It pitter-patters softly on her bedroom window, the sound itself nearly drowned out by the snoring of the dog curled up on her bed. The bed in question is freshly made and just asking to be slept in properly.

There’s really no reason for Vex not to sleep, and she really should, but here’s the thing: Vex has never really been that great at doing what she’s supposed to.

So while the waiting warmth of her bed sits unused, she sits cross-legged in her computer chair across the room trying to will her game to put her into an actual match.

After an aggravating wait, the game finally places her into one and she unfolds her legs and sits up in her chair. She lets her team pick their characters first, filling in where she’s needed-- they balance out nicely for once, and she can happily pick a DPS character without feeling guilty.

The enemy team lets them take the first stretch and move slowly back into the area that’s easier for the other team to defend than right outside their spawn, and Vex takes a couple of potshots at the distant, bobbing heads as they round the corner.

A red line streaks across her screen, killing her instantly.

“What the fuck,” she says under her breath, her character’s corpse falling limply just behind her teammates. Where did she even get shot from?

When her killcam comes up, she leans forward in her seat. The enemy sniper has themselves perched almost completely out of sight from where she was killed, partially because they’re so high up and partially because they’re practically across the map.

What a good omen for the start of a new game, huh?

She starts to leave spawn but ends up lingering to wait for the rest of her team; the enemy sniper getting an early pick on her and a few others gives the other team the upper hand and allows them to wipe her team quickly.

The second time she gets picked off with a headshot, she almost yells. She doesn’t, though, because she imagines that the last thing her neighbors in the apartments next to them want is to be waken up at two in the morning by her getting a little too worked up over a video game. More importantly, Vax has to get up for work in a couple of hours and she really isn’t a fan of the idea of waking him up.

For a moment as she watches the sniper’s point of view, she wonders if it’s an aimbot. It’s not unheard of to run into them every once in awhile, after all, but the aim is missing the mechanical snap to it. The shot that kills her is aimed with an almost graceful fluidity before flick; down she goes. No, this sniper is definitely being played by a human. One with infuriatingly quick reflexes and good positioning, but a human nonetheless.

Vex finds her tempo after that, tuning into the game in the way she only does when she’s getting agitated. She’s having a good run, picking off key targets in the enemy team as they continue to push forward towards the final point, before she jumps to climb on top of a box for a better viewpoint and is hit with a body shot. She frantically moves her mouse to search for her sniper, erratically moving her character back and forth with her WASD keys to try to avoid another shot until her fingers feel like they’re going to cramp up and break off. They’re perched on top of a roof, close enough where her bullets won’t have damage falloff. She aims and shoots, landing a bodyshot before they finish her off with a clean headshot.

ELIMINATED BY DEYOLO flashes across the bottom of her screen in white letters for the third time as her character falls over dead.

“Alright, buddy,” Vex murmurs as she sits back in her chair, cracking her knuckles in that way Vax hates as she stretches her fingers. Once again, the replay of her death shows her that the enemy sniper is obnoxiously accurate but not inhumanly so. After a glance at her team’s composition, she switches to a sniper character before she respawns. “Two can play at this game.”

She spots them almost immediately after she rejoins her skirmishing team, the other sniper perched up at the end up the point, scoped in while trying to take down the DPS. They don’t even see her, and she can’t help but grin to herself as she lines up the shot and takes it, landing a clean headshot that kills them instantly.

“Revenge is sweet,” she murmurs softly aloud to herself, allowing for a moment of pride and, admittedly, a bit of pettiness.

They manage to move right up to the objective on their last push, the game ticking over into overtime. She tries to pick the DPS off before they can close in, but their respawns are staggered out enough to keep it alive, and along with their spawn advantage they manage to hold long enough to send in an ult that wipes the rest of her team. With a long sigh, she jumps onto the objective despite knowing it’s useless. To make things worse, she’s taken out by the enemy sniper as they emerge from their spawn room.

“Fuck,” she says under her breath as DEFEAT appears on her screen.

She takes a long drink of water before she types out a quick GG, then bites her lip before she continues.

 **bearoness:** nice sniping  
**DEYOLO:** thank you  
**DEYOLO:** nice sniping from you at the end too  
**bearoness:** i try my best :^)

When the next game loads and they’re both still in it, although still on opposite sides, she can’t pinpoint if she’s excited or annoyed. On one hand, she’d love to win something and, although she considers herself a pretty excellent sniper, she’s easily being outdone by this other guy. On the other hand, Vex loves a good challenge and whoever this person is, they’re a damn good one.

She finds her groove after her second kill, picking off an enemy flanker before they’re able to take out her team’s support. When she spots the other sniper, she manages to take them out with a clean headshot before they even manage to pinpoint where she is, one that’s quick enough to feel a little bit smug over. She’s rewarded with another pop-up in the chat.

 **DEYOLO:** nice shot

She considers taking a second to type back but quickly finds herself distracted by an enemy taking down one of her teammates.

Her and the other sniper continue to trade picks for the rest of the game, and at one point they get her with a trick shot that she sees in her killcam that even she has to admit is pretty cool. She types back a quick compliment, and even though they’re still alive they take the time to pause and type back a thank you. If she’s being honest with herself, about halfway through she starts to develop a bit of tunnel vision when it comes to the other sniper. A side effect of being a twin, really; competitiveness is something she’s quite familiar with.

They skirmish around each other for the next two games-- and she can’t be totally sure, but she suspects the other sniper developed tunnel vision with her too, as they stopped making quite as many picks on the rest of her team, instead seeming to focus on trading blows with her. After the fourth game ends, she’s practically buzzing with energy; more energy than she’s felt in weeks. This other person, whoever they are, is a challenge who seems all too willing to play around with her a bit, and she could really use all the fun and enjoyment she can get her hands on right now.

When the game boots her to the main menu instead of another match with that group, she practically deflates in her chair as she feels the stab of disappointment. Well, so much for that.

Vex bites down on her lip as she draws her legs up to her chest and rests her chin on top of her knees, watching as the main menu loads. Her chat from the game is still visible on the left, including the name of the enemy sniper. After a moment of hesitation, she clicks on their name and sets the chat to whisper.

bearoness: hey, i just wanted to say that was some rlly great sniping on your part one more time

A couple of seconds pass and she thinks that she’s about to get ignored, but sure enough a message pops up.

 **DEYOLO:** Thank you  
**DEYOLO:** You landed some good shots yourself  
**bearoness:** haha ty  
**bearoness:** i cant do any fancy trick shots like you tho  
**DEYOLO:** I’ve had a lot of practice  
**DEYOLO:** Even without the trick shots, you were still fun to play against  
**bearoness:** yeah?  
**DEYOLO:** It was genuinely some of the most exciting snipe-offs I’ve had in this game in a long while

She reaches up and takes her bottom lip between her forefinger and thumb and pulls slightly, a nervous habit.

Well, fuck it. Why not? The worst that happens is her request gets declined and she feels a bit like an overeager idiot for a little while before shrugging it off. She takes her mouse in hand again and clicks on the ‘send friend request’ button.

Much like before, there’s a long moment where she thinks they’re just going to ignore her. Then the game makes a little alert sound as it informs her that one of her friends is online; specifically, this person.

She can’t help a little burst of delight.

 **bearoness:** we should group up some time  
**DEYOLO:** That sounds fun  
**bearoness:** it does! i hope playing on the same side as you is as interesting as playing against you  
**DEYOLO:** I would hope so?  
**bearoness:** maybe you can teach me some of those trick shots haha  
**DEYOLO:** If you wanted, I could certainly try!  
**bearoness:** idk what else you play besides snipers but i’ll gladly trade trick shot knowledge for tips on how to play my main heroes  
**DEYOLO:** I mostly play DPS heroes, especially hitscan  
**DEYOLO:** And that sounds fair, but you really don’t have to  
**bearoness:** oh cool!  
**bearoness:** and nah it's fine fair is fair u know  
**bearoness:** i play a little of everything but i like characters with mobility  
**DEYOLO:** Good to know ha  
**DEYOLO:** Unfortunately I can’t really stay on any longer. I have work in the morning and I’ve pushed my night long enough  
**bearoness:** oh yikes yeah i get you  
**bearoness:** i probably should’ve gone to bed a while ago too  
**DEYOLO:** Well, it was nice meeting you  
**bearoness:** yeah! talk to you later  
**DEYOLO:** Good night  
**bearoness:** gn!

Vex watches as the game gives her a notification that her new friend has logged off before taking her headphones off and setting them down so they rest against her keyboard. With a sigh, she leans back in her chair and stretches herself out with a yawn.

Well, that’s interesting. They’re a bit stiff typing-wise compared to her, but then again she’s used to frantically typing conversations in a large group chat. She threw formality in her online writing out the window years ago.

She considers going for a couple more games since she isn’t all that tired, but the clock in the corner of her screen makes her feel guilty about even being awake. Four in the morning is bad even for her. It’s definitely not the first time she’s stayed up gaming this early, and she knows it won’t be her last, but it leaves her feeling gross and irresponsible. At least if she was just laying in bed pretending to try to fall asleep for this long, she wouldn’t feel as awful about being awake. Plus Vax’s alarm will be going off soon, and she really doesn’t want him to peek in on her and find her still at her computer.

She logs out of her game for the night-- morning, night, whatever, she shouldn’t be awake is the point-- and briefly hovers her cursor above the icon for Chrome, biting down on her lip. She really should check her email. She’s not helpful to Vax when she’s like this, not pulling her own weight in helping keep their apartment. It’s just… it’s exhausting opening it and finding nobody interested in her.

And fuck it, she really isn’t interested in ruining what was a pretty decent day right before she passes out. So she shuts her computer down and takes another swig of water before getting up and pushing her computer chair in. She strips out of her sweatpants and kicks them off to the side of the room, vaguely in the direction of her dirty clothes basket, before she practically faceplants into her bed. The brown behemoth of a dog sleeping curled up at the foot of it huffs at the sudden disturbance but doesn’t otherwise move.

Vex turns her head to the side and watches Trinket sleep, a small smile spreading across her face as she prepares herself for another night-- er, morning-- of restless sleep. “I sure am jealous of you, buddy.”

* * *

She wakes to red hair and golden eyes and a splattering of freckles staring down at her.

Keyleth jumps back from Vex’s bed with a yelp as she sits straight up in bed suddenly, nearly headbutting her poor friend. “Sorry, sorry! I didn’t mean to scare you!”

“What the fuck, Keyleth,” Vex says as she squints at the other woman now bashfully avoiding her eyes-- the woman who is still very much standing in the middle of her bedroom. “Why are you here? It’s only--” She glances at her clock for the time and nearly bites down on her tongue when she sees that it’s two in the afternoon. Well, that’s a good part of her day gone. The unhealthy sleep cycle continues. “Why are you here, Keyleth?”

“Vax said I should come see you,” Keyleth says, and Vex can’t help but start plotting out her brother’s murder. Luckily for him, he works at a funeral home so hopefully they’ll get some sweet discounts. “And I have that spare key you guys gave me so I let myself in.”

She holds the key in question up and Vex sighs. Back when both twins were often gone at the same time because of work, Keyleth came over to dogsit Trinket. Lately Vex hasn’t needed that service.

Vex pushes the covers so they lay bunched at the foot of the bed, disturbing the dog in question who snorts before stirring, his head lazily rising to look at Keyleth and huffing a soft greeting to her. Vex shivers as the cold air hits her bare legs, raising an arm so she can make grabby hands at Keyleth who just stares at her in confusion. “Pants, if you would be so kind.”

“Oh!” Keyleth turns to the dresser next to her and opens one of the drawers, pulling out a pair of worn leggings and handing them to Vex. “Here you go.”

“Thank you darling.” Vex does her best to wiggle into them, getting to her feet so she can pull them on in what she’s sure is the most unflattering way. Now with pants, she turns back to Keyleth and the problem at hand. Warily, she asks, “Why did Vax say you should come?”

“He said you’ve been down in the dumps since you got fired from your last job,” Keyleth starts, and Vex feels her shoulders droop. Of course. “He thought you could use a friend. Somebody to pull you out of the house and give you a dose of positivity.”

“Well,” she says with a sigh, reaching down to give Trinket ear scritches. “You are the right person for that, I suppose.”

“It was me or Pike. And Pike is on shift at the hospital right now,” Keyleth says apologetically.

Vex shakes her head. “No, no. You’re fine company.” Then she bites her lip. “You say you want to get me out of the house?”

“How about coffee?” Keyleth suggests, her eyes suddenly twinkling knowingly as Vex feels a sharp tug of need in her stomach at the very mention of coffee.

“I mean, if you insist.” Vex looks down at herself now, frowning. “I should probably shower before we go.”

The smile Keyleth flashes her is warm enough to melt snow. “Of course!”

Forty-five minutes later, Vex is sitting across from Keyleth in a booth table at a local cafe, cradling her scalding hot coffee in her hands as she waits to drink it.

She lets Keyleth chatter away while she absently taps her nails against her coffee cup and gazes out the window of the cafe and into the dull brown winter of Emon. A light dusting of snow covers the city streets, parts of it watered down from the rainstorm last night and now frozen over, the white turning into a slick gray-brown mush in the road. Winter is, frankly, ugly in the city. Vex carries fond memories of running through pristine snow with her brother when they were young and lived with their mother out in their small rural hometown (a ‘backwater hick town’ she once heard it called in their private high school after they were whisked away to live with their father).

“So do you think he’ll help me?” Keyleth asks, breaking through her daze. Vex flicks her eyes back to meet the redhead’s eager ones, immediately feeling guilty for ignoring her after Keyleth was kind enough to drag her out of her hidey-hole and even buy her coffee.

“I’m sorry, darling,” she says apologetically, bringing her coffee up to her lips for another sip before continuing. “I kind of zoned out there for a little bit. What were you asking?”

Luckily for Vex, Keyleth seems completely undeterred by her impoliteness. “Oh, I was just asking if you think Grog would be willing to help me work out. Like, teach me some of his moves and stuff so I can get fit.”

Vex quirks an eyebrow and rests her chin in her hand, eyeing her friend over. “I mean, I don’t know Keyleth. I bet he’d absolutely help you if you asked, but are you sure Grog would be the best person for you? I mean… his workouts are pretty extreme from what I can tell.”

“Oh, I know,” Keyleth responds brightly, and Vex can’t help but admire her enthusiasm at the very least. Grog goes to the gym regularly, his social media absolutely covered in pictures and videos of him lifting weights and doing his workouts. It’s honestly pretty fucking insane how strong the guy is, and the videos are… well, the twins are both incredibly weak people in a number of ways and Vex would be lying if she said she didn’t enjoy watching Grog’s videos-- and Vax isn’t innocent either.

Really, they made such a mistake collecting so many attractive people as their friends.

“Well, if you’re really sure about it, I’m sure he’d love to help you.” The big man really does have a heart of gold buried under all those muscles, especially when it comes to his squishy friends.

Keyleth flashes her another smile before taking another sip of her coffee and humming. “I asked Kash for advice and he told me--” Her face scrunches up and she raises her finger and begins to do what Vex can only imagine is her best/worst impression of the man in question. “ _Babe, I love you but we are not going to be one of those couples that workout together_.”

“You asked Kash?” she repeats, an eyebrow raised.

“He’s deceptively strong!” the redhead responds brightly. Vex’s eyebrow raises even higher, if possible. She wouldn't have pegged Kash for being strong, but hey, she also has never seen under the seemingly endless layers he wears and Keyleth has, so if she’s telling her that Kash is fucking ripped under all that then she'll take her word for it.

“How is Kashew?” Vex prompts at the mention of the doctor.

“Kashaw,” Keyleth corrects.

“Bless you,” Vex shoots back.

The redhead ignores her. “He’s good! He’s been working a lot of night shifts so he’s been really tired lately. We haven’t gotten a chance to really Skype or do stuff as much because of it, but it’s fine.” She pauses, and Vex watches a content smile slowly spread across her face. “We’re fine.”

Keyleth has been seeing Kash for about a year now and Vex can’t help but find the whole thing a little intriguing. They met when Keyleth went out of town to work on some rich old woman’s yard-- as a freelancer her landscaping usually only gets business locally, but she’ll occasionally get recommended by previous customers and get to drive out to other cities-- and ended up falling _somehow_ and hitting her head. After driving herself to the local hospital-- which is the part of the story where everybody in the group proceeded to lose their goddamn minds-- she not only got the news that she suffered a mild concussion, but also somehow managed to nab the number of one of the doctors there.

(“He was leaving after his shift when he saw me and bought me chips from the vending machine!” Keyleth said at one point, staring dreamily off into space.

“How romantic,” Scanlan had quipped dryly, making Vex cover her face to muffle the snort she made.)

Vex has met him only a handful of times and, honestly, he's a bit of a prick. To his credit, she did get the impression that it’s less him trying to be awful and rude and more that he’s just perpetually awkward and more than a little confused-- and incredibly frustrated by that-- at all times.

Vex had asked him for his number at the end of the lunch where Keyleth first introduced him before she parted ways with the two lovebirds, if only for the sake of politeness and because she felt it was right to get to know her friend’s boyfriend.

Kash had simply responded with “I don’t have a phone,” while he visibly fiddled with the one he was holding in his hand.

So, no. Vex is not on particularly close terms with Keyleth’s boyfriend.

“That’s nice,” Vex says honestly. Despite her odd dynamic with Kashaw, she was glad that he somehow made Keyleth happy anyways.

Keyleth shoots her the most lovely smile, and then suddenly her eyes go wide and she snaps her fingers like she’s just remembered something, a soft O forming on her pink lips.

“Oh, I nearly forgot; I have this for you,” Keyleth says, rustling around in her little green purse before pulling out a purple laminated card and holding it out to her. Vex blinks down at it, and Keyleth waves it harder in front of her, prompting Vex to slowly take it from her.

She purses her lips once she realizes what it is. “Keyleth, why are you giving me a business card?”

“It’s from this really nice animal salon downtown,” she explains excitedly. “I was doing some talks with the owner about doing some work for her yard and she mentioned that she runs it.” She gestures at the card. “I looked it up online and when everything checked out, I went in person to scope the place out and it’s really nice, Vex. So I asked for a business card for my friend who’s job hunting and really, really passionate about animals.” Keyleth does her best wink at her, which isn’t very good-- her other eye almost closes with it too, and, well, she’s Keyleth so it’s still a bit endearing. “That’s you.”

“Yes,” Vex says slowly, turning the card over in her hands. “I know. Why did you get this for me, though?”

It feels a bit like… well, it feels a bit like pity, and Vex has never enjoyed being pitiful.

“Because you’re my friend, and you’re in a rough place, so I’m going to try to help you claw your way out.”

Well, it’s not… quite pity. It still makes her stomach churn accepting help, knowing she’s enough of a mess to need help in the first place, but she slowly slides the card into her jacket and mumbles out a half-hearted, “Thank you.”

Keyleth manages to shift the conversation towards her work shortly after, so luckily Vex’s thoughts don’t get to linger on pity for too long. After they finish their coffee they just walk and talk through the city for another hour, their adventure coming to an end after they reach the exit of the park by Vex’s apartment building. She sees Keyleth off with a wave and a promise that she’ll see about that business card before slowly trudging her way back home.

She’s pleasantly surprised to hear the tap running in the kitchen as she comes in the front door and tugs her boots off on the mat, brushing stray pieces of hair out of her eyes as she adjusts to the warmth of the apartment. “Vax?”

“No, it’s a burglar,” her brother deadpans. He stops washing dishes to turn and look at her as she slowly makes her way into the room, an eyebrow raised.

“And what a kind burglar you are, washing all our dishes.”

Vax reaches over for a mug sitting off to the side and takes a long swig from it, eyeing her until she gets closer before he reaches out to grab her around the waist and pull her in for a noogie. She bats at him half-heartedly, rarely opposed to affection from her often emotionally-constipated brother.

“How was your day?” she asks after she wiggles out of his grasp, snatching his coffee mug from his hands and making him grunt in protest.

“Long,” he says, yanking his coffee back after she takes a sip and taking a long drink from it. “So fucking long.”

“It’s a living,” she points out, and he gives a shrug.

“How was yours?” Vax asks casually, tapping his fingers on the mug and looking down into the liquid with tired eyes. “You do anything fun? Leave the house?”

She feels an irrational bit of anger flare up at the reminder of Vax telling Keyleth to come check on her-- it did her good, really, but it doesn’t make her feel any less guilty or awful about letting this funk get her so down that her brother has to call in one of their friends to check on her-- and bites it down. “Fine. Keyleth came over, but you already knew that.”

“I hope you aren’t mad,” he says, eyes flickering up to look at her again. “I was just worried.”

“I’m not mad,” Vex responds instantly, smothering the little part of her that is, in fact, mad.

“Vex,” he warns, a frown on his face. “Don’t lie to me about that.”

“I was a little annoyed,” she relents, crossing her arms defensively. “But I understand why you did it. And it was good. I needed it.”

“Good,” he says, clearly relaxing. “What did you two do?”

“Got coffee, took a walk through the park before splitting ways and heading home.” She shrugs.

Vax takes a step back from her, an offended look on his face as he cradles his mug close to his chest. “You had coffee already and you’re stealing mine?”

“Yes,” she shoots back instantly, taking a step closer to him and pawing at it because she’s a little shit.

“I have been awake since four thirty, Vex,” he says, his voice dripping with over-dramatic syrup, “and you decide you’re still going to deprive me of my precious?”

“Oh, shut up,” she scoffs good-naturedly. “You’ll be going to sleep in like an hour or two anyways. Don’t you know it’s bad to drink coffee before bed?”

“Hypocrite,” he accuses.

“Absolutely,” she agrees.

She banters with her brother in the kitchen for a while, enjoying the familiar company before he smiles softly and tells her he’s going to watch TV for a bit and wind down from work, and she leaves him be-- but not without a stolen smooch to the forehead-- and retreats to her room, plopping down in her rickety old computer chair and leaning back as she waits for her PC to boot up.

She opens her email and feels her mood drop instantly. No replies about interviews, no emails that anybody is interested in her; nothing. Vex lets out a shuddering sigh and drops her forehead directly into the keyboard, the keys mashed uncomfortably against her face. Lovely. Fucking lovely.

She pulls that card Keyleth gave her out of her jacket pocket and holds it in her lap, looking down at the cheesy purple background and bright yellow pawprints acting as a border to the contact information.

Well, fuck it. What does she have to lose at this point?

The website for the salon looks like it hasn’t been updated in ten years to her-- the color scheme nearly obnoxious and the layout of the website itself reminiscent of the websites her younger self had browsed-- but at least it’s navigable and, according to the latest notice on the front page, still in-use by the owners. She tries her best to ignore the uncomfortable weight in the pit of her stomach as she works her way through applications, trying and (mostly) succeeding, at least to the point where she successfully sends her stuff in instead of closing out of everything related to it.

Vex spends the next couple of days playing her game a lot and trying to bury the sick feeling that only continues to grow stronger when she doesn’t get any replies, as she always does when she’s hit a particularly rough patch of depression, but she doesn’t end up playing it alone for the most part.

Her new friend-- DEYOLO, although even just saying the name in her head makes her giggle, so she decides to just stick with ‘her new friend’-- is actually the one to approach her about playing first. They whisper to her almost as soon as she boots up the game after closing her email to ask her if she wants to try grouping together, and her day can really only go up from the shitty depths she’s plunged her mood into, so she agrees, desperate for any sort of pick-me-up.

They are, in fact, as interesting to play _with_ as they are to play against. They start out playing a sniper for a few rounds, then switches off to play DPS. She switches around a bit, leaving the sniping to them.

They have a good couple of games before they have to politely excuse themselves for the night, and Vex reluctantly takes that as her cue and goes to bed too.

They play on and off for the new few days, sometimes only for a handful of games and sometimes for hours on end. It’s nice. They don’t actually talk much outside of absently calling shots in the chat or lightly bantering while waiting to get put in a game, but she doesn’t feel pressure to keep up conversation. It’s comfortable.

On the fourth day of playing together, they run into an awful streak of bad luck. They lose six games in a row, and no matter the character shifts they make, they just can’t pull off any wins.

Vex has her head in her hands when the current match ends, barely suppressing a frustrated scream. She drags her fingers across her face as she watches the stat cards come up and, predictably, her friend has one for eliminations. She throws them a vote in appreciation because, hey, even if they got totally stomped, her friend at least did pretty well. As she watches her EXP bar fill up a downright miserable amount, a message pops up in the corner of the screen.

 **DEYOLO:** We’re kind of getting destroyed, aren’t we?

She snorts. No shit.

 **bearoness:** that's putting it lightly, i think  
**DEYOLO:** It definitely is.  
**bearoness:** you had a good kill streak for a while there  
**bearoness:** despite our team as a whole failing miserably lol  
**DEYOLO:** Thanks lmao  
**DEYOLO:** You got a couple nice kills too  
**bearoness:** take what we can get  
**DEYOLO:** Too true

She leans back in her chair and stretches her hands as the loading screen for the next match starts and-- ah, great. The same teams again. Lovely. She locks in on her character and takes a deep breath.

 **DEYOLO:** Hey  
**bearoness:** ?  
**DEYOLO:** What do you think about voice chat?

Well. Uh.

Vex has a lot of thoughts about voice chat in video games. Most of them not good. She’s had some rather awful experiences using it in the past when she gamed, usually tied into her being a woman, and has heard some downright nasty things directed at her.

It’s not as if she’s naturally a shy person-- quite the opposite, really-- but she likes being comfortable and voice chat runs the risk of being the exact opposite of comfortable for her.

Before she has a chance to start replying, her friend sends another message.

 **DEYOLO:** We’re getting our asses kicked so maybe we can organize better if we’re actually calling shots and stuff at a moment’s notice.  
**DEYOLO:** No pressure though

She bites down on her lip (Vax’s voice teasing her that she’ll gnaw right through it one day echoing in her head-- because god, she sure has been doing it a lot lately) before she types back.

 **bearoness:** would group chat be okay with just us?  
**bearoness:** not a fan of general team chat  
**DEYOLO:** Of course.

She has to go into her settings and flip on her mic and group chat volume in-game because she can’t actually recall a time she’s ever used it. There’s a good chance she just disabled those settings when she first got the game because she didn’t want to deal with creepy internet randoms. When she plays with Vax or Keyleth or any of her other real friends, she just uses their Discord server for voice chat.

Vex watches the game give her a little pop-up that tells her that there are two people currently in the group voice chat, and she takes a deep breath.

“Hello?” she says into the mic, more than a little timidly. She hopes her friend can’t hear the way her voice slightly wavers on that one word.

Silence. After it goes on moment too long she considers dropping out of voice chat and flipping all these settings off immediately, but then another voice emits from her headphones.

“Hello?” the voice echoes back, masculine and rich and so, _so_ fucking posh. It’s about the last thing she expected her sniping buddy to sound like, which is why she jolts in her seat when she hears them speak.

“Uh, hi,” she offers lamely.

“Oh, good. It works. This should be much easier now.” He breezes past the fact that she has a feminine voice, and she can’t help but feel the wave of relief that washes over her. She’d much rather it be a non-issue than even get a single remark about it, so she’s grateful for this pleasant development.

“Yeah, uh, I hope so.” She runs her tongue over her lips again. “Hey, I don’t suppose you’d be willing to give me a name? I suppose I can call you DEYOLO if you don’t wanna give me one--” She’s cut off by an audible groan from the person on the other end.

“God, that is my username, isn’t it?”

She can’t help but smile a little bit, a small fraction of her nervousness breaking off as she processes his reaction to that. Well, at least he knows how ridiculous it sounds. “You sound like you forgot.”

“More like I’m desensitized to seeing it. Hearing it is a whole different demon, apparently.”

Vex tries and fails to suppress a little laugh. “If you don’t like it, why chose it as your username?”

“I didn’t!” he shoots back, sounding almost offended. “I chose BADNEWS when I made the account. My little sister thought it would be funny to change it.”

“And that was your one allowed name change,” she realizes with a faint grin.

“Yes,” he says, clearly still bitter about the whole thing.

Ah, siblings.

“Really though, you got a name? I don’t want to, but I will resort to using your current username if I have to.”

“Please never say it out loud again.”

She rolls her eyes and can’t help but mouth it slowly to herself, silently so he won’t know, before she continues, “A name then. Doesn’t even need to be your real name, just something to call you.”

“Percival,” he says finally, and she can’t help but roll her eyes again because with a frilly accent like his _of course_ his name would be something like _Percival_. “Percy’s fine though.”

“Percy,” she repeats, testing the name in her mouth.

“What about you?”

“Vex.”

“Is that a nickname?”

“It’s short for Vex’ahlia.”

“That’s an unusual name.”

She rolls her eyes _again_. “And Percival is incredibly posh sounding.”

“Fair,” he concedes, and she can’t help but smirk a little bit.

It turns out her sniping buddy-- _Percy_ , she repeats the name slowly to herself in her head, turning the weight of it over and over and finding that she rather likes it-- wasn’t wrong about using voice chat, and she finds it easier to push past problems with their soft chatter guiding the two of them through enemy lines. It’s nice not having to pull off to the side and frantically type out the problem she’s seeing, but instead be able to call out what she sees instantly and watch Percy adjust his playstyle to deal with what she just said.

They lose anyways, getting wiped in overtime, but it’s not a complete stomping like the previous games.

(“Dammit,” she hears Percy whisper at one point, then flicks her gaze up to the corner of the screen to the killfeed where it shows that he just… committed suicide?

“What did you just do?” she asks with a quirked eyebrow.

“It, um, appears I accidentally backed up over the side of a cliff because I wasn’t watching where I was going.”

She snorts, finding herself unconsciously doubling back to regroup with him as he respawns. “Wow.”

“Shut up,” is all he says back, but his voice is lighthearted. She laughs.)

They land themselves in another game with a different group this time, finding much better luck in a fresh match, and keep working their way through ties and wins-- and the occasional loss, although nothing quite as awful as their losing streak earlier. At one point in their third game, Percy calls out a flanker coming up behind Vex while she’s healing and, before she can even turn to see what he’s looking at, proceeds to pistol whip the enemy before they can even lay a finger on her.

Eventually the game stops automatically queueing them into matches, and they're booted to the main menu. Vex takes a long breath and leans back in her chair, stretching out her fingers. They’re sore from so much playing, but she’s not all that tired, surprisingly. She hears the faint sound of a bottle crackling on the other side of the line as Percy presumably takes a drink.

“That was fun,” she says softly, reaching up to play with the edge of her braid.

“It was,” he agrees. “So, do you want to try using voice chat again in the future? Like I said, you don’t have to if you don’t want to. I’m perfectly fine with just using text chat.”

She bites her lip before she responds. “I’ve had some bad experiences with voice chat but, uh, this was really nice. So yeah, I’m fine with voice chat.”

“Oh,” he says, sounding a little pleased, almost like he was expecting her to outright reject him.

“You’re good company.”

He laughs at that, and it’s a rather lovely laugh. Low and melodic, and over too quick. “I’m glad. I’d hate to scare off a new friend.” He quickly adds, “I don’t actually know if you’re comfortable with me calling you a friend -”

It’s her turn to laugh now. “Friend is just fine.”

They settle into a companionable silence for a minute, and Vex spares a look at the corner of her screen and does a double take. It’s nearly four again, and Vax’s alarm goes off soon. She genuinely lost track of time playing with him.

“Holy shit, it’s late,” she says, covering her face with her hands. Why does this always happen?

Percy lets out a startled laugh. “I didn’t even notice.”

“God, it’s like four and my brother is going to get up for work soon and I don’t want him finding out I was up this late.” She pinches the bridge of her nose.

“You’re an hour behind me,” he observes quietly, and she sits up in her chair at that.

“It’s nearly five for you?” she asks.

He sounds almost sheepish as he responds. “I don’t exactly have a normal human sleep schedule.”

She laughs again. “Well, I’m not really one to talk, so you won’t find any judgement here.” She hears him snort. “Well, I really should go before the sun starts coming up.”

“Same,” he agrees.

“Good night-- uh, morning?” She squints at her clock.

“Good night,” he decides. “Neither of us have slept yet and it’s still dark, it doesn’t count as morning.”

“Good point,” she says, a small smile pulling at her lips. “Well, good night, Percy.”

“Good night, Vex,” he responds, and really, despite the poshness of it, it really is a lovely voice.

Percy quits out of the game first, and she contemplates just closing the game and shutting her computer off right away. She’s overdue for bed now, but she begrudgingly pulls up her email anyways. Because she’s an adult. And adults check their fucking email, even if it only leads to soul crushing depression.

She deletes some spam that found its way through her automatic filter and makes note of some printable coupons, slumping in her seat with her chin in her hand as she slowly scrolls her way through the barren wasteland of her email. She’s really not sure what she was expecting-- nothing, honestly, she was expecting nothing and she’s still let down-- but her eyes wander over the messages, catching on a single one that--

Holy shit.

She practically leaps out of her chair and runs out of her room and across the hall to her brother’s, throwing open his bedroom door and flinging herself onto his bed. Vax wakes with a jolt, stiffening as he takes in her shaking form crawling ontop of him. His voice is clear and alert when he speaks-- not a hint of the fact that he’d been asleep not a few seconds before-- his tone laced with worry. “Vex’ahlia? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing! Nothing’s wrong!” She’s almost yelling now, and he winces at her volume and proximity.

“Then why did you just bust down my door like the apartment’s on fire, Vex? It’s--” He glances at his bedside table and the clock there and groans when he sees the time. “It’s four in the fucking morning, Vex.”

She grabs him by his shirt then (a black T-shirt with the logo of one of those edgy bands he’s so fond of) and yanks him up so his startled and annoyed face is an inch from hers, her voice trembling as she speaks. “I have an interview.”

Vax stills. “What?”

“I got an email back from the place Keyleth suggested I apply to, the dog grooming place,” she continues excitedly.

“Holy shit,” Vax says.

“Holy shit,” Vex agrees, releasing her grip on his shirt so he falls back against his pillows.

He’s barely back against the bed before Vax wraps his arms around her and pulls her down for a hug, holding her tight against him. “I’m happy for you, Stubby.”

“Hey, thanks.” She’s muffled against his chest.

Then he gives her a playful shove and she tumbles backwards off his bed, gracefully catching herself and landing on her feet, nimble as a cat. He’s grinning at her still. “Now get the fuck out of my room and let me sleep.”

Vex sticks her tongue out at him before she leaves, closing his door behind her and then her own as she walks up to her desk and starts shutting her computer down. When she finally crawls into bed, Trinket curled up right against her side, she falls asleep easily for the first time in a month.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is a monster and most will be in the 4k range, i just wanted to get things set up properly and then... well, it just sort of got away from me.  
> ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯


	2. Chapter 2

Percy is not a morning person.  


This has always been the case as far back as he can remember. Vesper and Julius would have to practically drag him out of bed if they wanted him up before noon, especially on school days. (The number of times he was late for school or church or… anything early in the morning? Well, it was one of the few things his parents found frustrating about him. Otherwise he was a perfectly decent if somewhat introverted child, thank you very much.) Even now it’s rare for him to wake before noon of his own volition. The fact that he often falls asleep around two or three in the morning-- at the earliest-- probably doesn’t help much at all.

Eh. Percy’s got a complicated relationship with sleep itself and not just mornings, but that’s another story.

When he opens his eyes to a bright bedroom and rolls over to find the clock telling him it’s two in the afternoon, he’s hardly surprised. He slides his glasses on, blinking as he adjusts to the room coming into focus, before he pulls himself out of bed and makes his way to the little bathroom he has off the side of his room.

Rubbing his jawline, he looks himself over in the mirror with a squint. Scruff doesn’t look bad on him, does it? It mostly happened out of being too exhausted to shave regularly, but it doesn’t look awful, right? He doesn’t think so. He never used to like himself with facial hair, but perhaps he’s finally started to grow into it with age.

He’ll leave it for now.

He goes through the rest of his morning-- afternoon-- routine: showers, brushes his teeth and his hair, pops his pills and thinks _shit, maybe I’m actually going to function like a normal human being today_.

Good days are nice. He wishes he’d have more of them.

Speaking of good days, he really should… check in with the other person prone to bad days living in this apartment, shouldn’t he?

When he wanders out into the kitchen he’s not surprised to find Cass there, barely awake herself. They’ve always disagreed on a lot of thing, even in their youth, but not being morning people has always been something they’ve had in common.

“Hey,” he says, taking a seat across from where she sits at the kitchen island. She barely acknowledges his presence, too busy staring down at her breakfast-- if you can technically call it breakfast anymore at two in the afternoon, but then again, Percy’s not one to talk. “Can I talk to you about something?”

“Good afternoon to you too, Percy. If this is about that game you always play, I’m not interested,” Cassandra says immediately, absently spooning up pieces of soggy cereal before dropping them back into her bowl.

He squints at her for a moment, a deep frown on his face. “I don’t talk about it _that_ much.”

“You do and it’s awful,” she complains.

He rolls his eyes. He doesn’t-- he doesn’t talk about it that much, right? Right.

Percy clears his throat. “Well, I just wanted to… check in with you.”

That makes her pause her movements, the cereal in her spoon dripping back down into her bowl as she stops and looks up at him. “You do?” she asks, a little incredulously.

“You’re my sister,” he says, more than a little defensively at the tone of her voice. “Of course I want to know how you’re doing.”

Cassandra narrows her eyes. “How I’m doing with my therapist, you mean.”

He shrugs, feeling pinpricks on the back of his neck at the idea of speaking this frankly about this topic with her. But, well, he does want to know. “Just in general. If-- if that includes therapy, then--”

“Thank you for asking,” she says a little stiffly, still eyeing him over. After a moment she seems to let herself relax a little bit. “It’s… good, I suppose. As good as therapy can be, I mean.”

“Of course.”

She looks back down at her bowl and starts spooning it up again. “And how’s your medication?”

“Ah,” he says warily, and nope, it’s not a good feeling to have this turned around on him. “It’s working well, I think.”

“I’ve noticed less mood swings,” she offers a little timidly, like she’s carefully trying to feel out where their boundaries are when it comes to talking about this sort of thing. He understands the feeling.

“Yes, those are… definitely much better as of late,” he agrees.

Cassandra opens her mouth to speak, seems to think better and closes it, then opens it again to ask, “And the nightmares…?”

Percy feels a chill creep up his spine at the mention, the pinpricks at the back of his neck getting more intense. “Not as many,” he says shortly, which is not the confirmation of absence that she was probably hoping for.

After a long moment, Cassandra softly responds with, “Me too.”

The sit in silence for a minute, that hanging over them. It isn’t… uncomfortable, but it certainly isn’t a warm and cozy silence either-- which seems like a good summary of their relationship, really. Finally, Percy says, “I doubt either of us will ever not have nightmares, Cass. After what we went through… well, it’s a nice thought, anyways.”

Cassandra sighs, a little tremble at the end of it. “We survived, though.”

“We did,” he quietly agrees. That’s more than the rest of their family can say, at least. Neither of them say that thought aloud, though.

She clears her throat then, picking her bowl up and getting up from her seat, a signal that she’s moving on from the subject and it’s best that he does too. “Do you have work today?”

He shakes his head. “Victor’s working on a personal project and has requested that he not be disturbed.”

She snorts at that, draining the rest of her milk into the sink before moving over to the trash and spooning the soggy cereal into it. “What kind of personal projects could that man possibly have?” When Percy opens his mouth to tell her she looks over her shoulder at him and waves her hand dismissively. “I don’t actually want to know.”

“That’s probably for the best,” he agrees.

“So,” Cassandra says as she puts her bowl and spoon in the dishwasher, using that voice that means she wants something. He raises his eyebrow and rests his chin on his hand. “Since you don’t have anything to do today, perhaps you could take some of the paperwork off my hands.”

“Who says I don’t have anything to do today?” he shoots back quickly, already backpedaling away because paperwork? For the family business? That’s the last thing he wants to do today.

She turns around and gives him a Look-- she doesn’t saying anything, just narrows her eyes at him and purses her already thin lips. He immediately loses his nerve.

“Alright, alright!" he says, anything to make her stop looking at him like that. “I’ll help you.”

She drops it, rolling her eyes at him. “Oh, please. You’re lucky that we both agreed that neither of us were fit to head the company and were able to put together a decent amount of people for the board, otherwise we’d both be drowning in even more paperwork than we already are.”

Sighing, he nods before pinching the bridge of his nose. “I know, I know.”

“A little bit of paperwork won’t kill you, brother,” she says.

* * *

The paperwork doesn’t kill him, but it sure feels like it comes close. He works on it for hours, fills it out until his vision starts to swim and the more he tries to concentrate on the words in front of him that more everything seems to blur and his mind fills with static and--

He drops his head into his hands.

Okay, well, that’s enough of that for now.

He sighs, pushing the papers off to the side of his desk. Distraction time.

When he pulls up the launcher for his game and can’t help the little leap of delight he feels when he sees Vex online, currently sitting in the menu. He taps inpatiently at his desk as he waits for it to boot up, and as soon as it loads he’s clicking on her name to send off a message.

He types something to her quickly and can’t help but smile when she immediately answers.

 **DEYOLO:** Care for a few games?  
**bearoness:** ngl was kinda waiting to jump into a game to see if you or anybody else would come online  
**bearoness:** its been a long day so i would LOVE the distraction

He sends the party invite and she instantly accepts, her icon showing up next to his.

“Hello?” he says.

“Hi, Percy!” Vex’s voice comes in clear through his headphones. He can feel the fog that’s settled over his mind from doing paperwork lift as he hears her speak, and he smiles again.

He rests a hand on his chin. “Here we are yet again, it seems.”

She laughs, but she sound tired. He frowns at that. “So it appears.”

He doesn’t know Vex very well, true, but he’s at least decent enough at reading people to be able recognize exhaustion when he hears it.

“You said it’s been a long day and you needed a distraction,” he says, and he almost regrets saying it because he’s not quite sure if it’s crossing a line or not. “Is it like… a bad kind of long day?”

“Huh?” She sounds caught off-guard.

“Ah, don’t worry about it,” he says quickly, already pulling back from this attempt to reach out and waving her off with one hand before freezing in place as he remembers that she can’t actually see him do that. He lowers his hand back to the mouse. “You don’t have to share if you don’t want to, I just figured I’d ask. To be polite.”

“Oh, no, Percy. It’s fine.” He relaxes at that. “And no, it’s not… a bad kind of long. It’s just… it’s been a very, _very_ long day, you know?”

“Ah,” he says, because he does know. He glances at the paperwork he has sitting off to the side.

“Thanks for asking,” she adds, and he smiles a bit despite himself.

“Just being polite,” he says with a little shrug.

“I, uh, started a new job not long after we started talking. I’ve been working there for a few weeks now and it’s been good pretty consistently since I started. Like, really good. I was unemployed for a while and before that, the job I had was… well, I wasn’t very happy with it. So having something good like this is extremely refreshing, even if it’s tiring.” She starts to say something else but seems to cut herself off, a moment of hesitation. Then, she says, “Sorry, I think I just overshared a lot.”

Percy laughs. “No, don’t worry, you’re fine. I was the one who asked. I’m glad you’re happier.”

“Well, thank you for asking and… thank you,” she says, and the way she says it radiates warmth. “Since we’re being polite, how was your day?”

“Ah, nothing much. I did a bunch of paperwork mostly.” Not as much as Cassandra would probably like, he admits silently, but it’s all that his brain will let him do for now.

“Aw man, that’s no fun,” Vex says, and he wholeheartedly agrees.

“Well, that’s why I’m here with you: fun.”

He hears her snort. “You’re not going to be thinking I’m very fun when I’m stressed out and angry during actual games.”

“No, no, you’re lovely company even then,” he says dismissively, and she laughs sweetly at that and something in his chest tightens suddenly before it’s gone in an instant, before he can even spare a thought about what it was.

“Well then, I’m honored to play by your side tonight.” He lets out a content little hum of agreement before she suddenly asks, “Oh, hey, before we start can you give me a moment?”

“Of course,” he says, leaning back in this chair a little bit while she does whatever she needs to do.

He hears the telltale click-clack of her typing on her keyboard. After a minute or so of that, her voice comes back through his headphones.

“Hey, uh, Percy?” she says.

“Yes?”

“How do you feel about adding a third member to our little party tonight?”

He raises an eyebrow. “Well, I suppose I wouldn’t be opposed. Who is it?”

“My friend. I haven’t gotten to play with her in a while because she’s been busy with work, and I’m already playing with you--”

He can’t help the twinge of guilt he feels when he hears that. “Please, by all accounts don’t let me get in the way of you hanging out with your friend.”

“Oh, Percy, no! I like playing with you; plus it would be pretty rude to just dump you to the curb while I play with somebody else. Since I’m already playing with you, I just figured that maybe we could all join up and play a few games together.”

“Are you sure?” he asks again, just because he isn’t fond of the idea of him-- a person who’s about a level above a stranger for her-- intruding on Vex’s bonding time with a friend if she really doesn’t want him there and is only being polite.

“Positive,” she affirms.

“Then, ah, I suppose there’s no problem with it.”

“Great!” she says, and the delight in her voice is almost infectious. He feels the corners of his lips tilt up on one side at the sound. “I know playing in voice chat with someone you don’t really know can be weird at first-- case in point.”

He can’t help but laugh at that. “I don’t know, I think we blew past the awkward and weird stage pretty fast, considering.”

“Well,” Vex says, and he can practically hear the smile in her voice. (What _does_ her smile look like, he wonders absently before shoving that thought aside.) “I can’t argue with that.”

“No,” he agrees.

“Well, I just was going to say that I’ll be here to act as a bit of a mediator, I suppose? Although, word of warning, my friend is… well, she’s a little bit of an odd one.”

He raises an eyebrow. “How so?”

“You’ll see,” she responds dismissively, and _that_ only makes Percy raise his eyebrow higher as he ponders what that could mean. “However, she’s oddly charming despite being one of the least traditionally charismatic people I’ve ever met in my entire life. I think you’ll like her-- at least, I _hope_ you’ll like her.”

“Well, if she’s anything like you I’m sure we’ll get along just fine,” he says without thinking, and immediately after speaking he freezes up. Well, shit. That sounds… incredibly weird, doesn’t it? Weird as in _freak out your new acquaintance just weeks into your friendship_ kind of weird.

Vex, for her part, seems completely unbothered by it. “Aww, darling! You’re too sweet!”

The endearment hits him directly in the gut like a sucker punch, and Percy decides not to devote too much higher brain function to figuring out why. Instead, he weakly responds back with, “I try my best.”

“Okay, well, let me just add her really quick-- ah, there we go!”

He glances down at the text that appears in the chatbox as a new icon appears next to his and Vex’s:

voiceofthetempest has been added to the party.

“Keyleth?” Vex says, and Percy makes the logical leap that Keyleth is the name of her friend. After a moment with no reply, Vex repeats herself. “Keyleth? Are you there?”

A burst of sharp static cuts over the voice chat and Percy recoils in his seat, pulling his headphones halfway off his head until he sees the voice chat icon that tells him Keyleth is ‘speaking’ disappear.

When he slides his headphones back on, Vex is speaking again. “Keyleth, your microphone!”

A staticy, feminine voice answers with, “What?”

“Your mic, Keyleth! Check your mic! It’s making awful noises when you try to speak.”

Percy winces when the woman speaks again, another burst of static filling the line. “Really? Shit, I’m really sorry--”

“Maybe do it a little quieter?” Vex suggests, voice strained.

“Oh, right!” After a moment of silence after the last bit of static, a much clearer voice says, “Is this better?”

“Much,” Vex says, an obvious relief in her voice that Percy can relate too. “Well, I’m glad you could group up.”

“Me too! It feels like I haven’t seen you in forever; you or any of the others! I’ve been so bogged down with work lately that I’ve barely had time to myself, much less time for my personal relationships. And, like, I love my job, you know? But a person’s gotta have time to themselves sometimes and--”

Percy sits back in his chair, his brain translating most of the other woman’s words into static, although not as awful as the static from before. Even if he has zero idea what this person is talking about, at least she has a nice voice: cheery, a little on the high-pitched side but not unpleasantly so. She sounds like the kind of person who’d teach a kindergarten class or record audio books of children’s bedtime stories.

After a few moments of the woman-- _Keyleth_ , he reminds himself so he won’t look like a fool-- rattling on, Vex cuts in kindly with, “Keyleth, dear, it’s nice to hear how you’re doing but I would like to remind you we have company currently.”

Percy clears his throat to announce his presence in the voice chat, honestly a little surprised that Vex didn’t just forget about him with Keyleth going on the way she did.

Keyleth makes a startled noise at the sound of him clearing his throat. “Oh, shit, sorry! You’re right, I totally forgot we’re playing with your friend. I mean-- hi!”

“Hello,” he responds, an eyebrow raised as he sits up in his chair again now that he’s being directly spoken to again. “It’s a pleasure to meet you. I’m, ah, sorry you don’t have much time to yourself.” After a moment he adds in what he hopes is a good-naturedly teasing tone, “Jobs, right?”

(Jobs have never been the reason for Percy’s lack of free time, at least not in the traditional sense. He would trade that for his own problems hindering his social life in a _second_.)

“Jobs,” Keyleth agrees in a cheery voice, and he wonders how much of this is her trying to be nice and how much is genuinely just her personality.

“Jobs,” Vex echoes in her own agreement.

He reaches up to rub the back of his neck. “I, ah, don’t know if Vex has already told you but you can call me Percival.”

“Percival, really?” Keyleth says, unable to keep the surprise out of her voice. “That’s--”

“Extremely formal and prissy,” Vex says dismissively, and it makes him snort despite himself. “Yes, yes, we’ve covered that already. Just call him Percy, it’s much easier.”

“She’s not wrong,” he relents. “But yes, Percy works just fine.”

“Oh, cool! Yeah, okay. I can work with that. I’m Keyleth.”

“So I’ve heard,” he says, resting his chin on his hand.

“Right, duh, of course you have.” She laughs. “Okay, so like… imagine me holding out a hand for you to shake. Because of politeness.”

“Wow,” Vex says softly, amusement in her voice.

Percy chuckles. Well, alright. “Imagine me shaking your hand then, I suppose?”

“ _Wow_ ,” Vex says again.

He ignores her. “It’s good to meet you, Keyleth.”

“Same!” Keyleth says, clearly excited.

“Alright, so with introductions out of the way are you two ready so I can queue us into a game?” Vex asks.

They both give confirmations and Percy watches as a little dotted circle appears on his screen and begins spinning. They make idle chit-chat while they wait, Percy flicking through the cosmetics section and switching skins on a couple of his heroes while Vex and Keyleth talk to each other.

“- yeah, Vax has been working super weird hours because of his job,” Vex says, and that makes Percy cock his head to one side and blink rapidly. Vax? Did he… mishear? Is Vex talking about herself in third person?

“Aw, hope you two get more time to spend each other.” Nope, definitely another person.

“I hope so too,” Vex agrees, a note of wistfulness in her voice as she says it. 

“I’m sorry,” he cuts in, trying to be as polite as possible about jumping into their conversation-- although to be fair, he _is_ in the voice chat with them and they both know he’s there, but that doesn’t make the feeling of intrusion go away-- as he speaks, “did you just say Vax? Not Vex?”

There’s a moment of silence from the two women. Vex then proceeds to burst into laughter, followed by a few giggles from Keyleth’s end. He squints, feeling a bit left out of the joke here.

After a few more seconds of laughter Vex seems to come back down to herself. “Oh shit, sorry. I forgot you wouldn’t know and-- shit-- it just always makes me laugh when people realize it for the first time. Vax is my brother.”

He blinks in disbelief. “Your brother?”

“My twin brother specifically,” she says, and Percy can already feel a headache coming on.

“So, wait a moment,” he starts slowly, and Vex begins giggling again, “that means that you two are twins named--”

“Vex and Vax, yes.”

He reaches up to rub at the bridge of his nose. “Because that’s not confusing at all.”

“Not in the slightest,” she quips. He hears Keyleth snort.

“Don’t worry, Percy. At least you didn’t meet the two of them at the exact same time. I was mixing them up for _months_ ,” Keyleth says.

“You still do it sometimes, dear,” Vex says, and there’s an unmistakable fondness for her friend in her voice. Suddenly the game makes a little ping and he snaps to attention, watching as the game starts loading them into a match. “Oh, here we go!”

Percy locks into a sniper as soon as the option comes up, feeling in a snipe-y kind of mood. Vex waits for the rest of the team to fill in more before she picks around their choices, settling into a healing role. Keyleth doesn’t pick. Percy quirks an eyebrow and watches her portrait, waiting for her to change. He’s not entirely sure what kind of player Keyleth is based on the roughly seven minutes he’s known her, but he’s definitely curious. Finally, she picks a defensive role-- specifically a role that’s notorious for being used in... a questionable fashion by many players. Well, this will be interesting.

Keyleth, it turns out, is usually pretty useful. She’s a decent shot, headshotting enemies before he’s even able to get a shot off on them himself. Other times she’s good at slowing down enemies and playing with them, stalling after they lose a few people in a team fight and buying them time so they can get back to point. Frankly, she’s a clutch player.

Usually.

For every ten absolutely amazing plays that Keyleth manages to pull off, she also manages to pull off at least one horrific fight-losing accident.

Case in point: Vex pops off her ultimate, resurrecting their entire team (He nearly chokes on the water he’d been drinking while waiting to respawn when he suddenly comes back, giving her a half-gargled, “Nice rez!”) right when they’re about to lose their point. Keyleth immediately puts up a wall between her and the enemies, accidentally splitting their newly resurrected team in half and leaving him, Vex, and a DPS stranded with the entire enemy team. They’re, predictably, slaughtered.

(“Keyleth,” Vex says in a strained voice.

“What?” Keyleth responds, then probably looks back up at the killfeed and her wall before going very softly, “Oh.”

“ _My five man rez_.”

“It was a good rez,” he offers lamely, respawning at her side.

“Thanks,” she responds gloomily.)

All in all though, it’s fun. The three of them play off of each other well, Percy and Keyleth eventually settling into a comfortable system of her slowing enemies so he can secure headshots, which comes in handy with flankers and other quick-moving target.

Eventually, Keyleth has to call it a night. “I have to get up pretty early for my job tomorrow,” she says apologetically.

“It’s fine,” Percy reassures instantly at the same time that Vex says, “You’re fine, darling.”

Keyleth laughs. “Really though, it was fun. I’d love to do this again sometime once I actually have breathing room when it comes to my life again.”

“I agree,” he says, stretching out his fingers. “You’re a good player.”

She snorts. “I suppose. When I’m not accidentally walling off half our team and leaving you two to die, I mean.”

“At least you’re self-aware?” he offers.

“Oh, trust me, I’m very aware.” She laughs again. “Really though, it was fun. It was so good to hang out with you again Vex--”

“Likewise,” the other woman chimes in.

“- and I hope we get the chance to hang out in person soon once things calm down! And Percy, it was really nice to meet you!”

“It was nice to meet you too,” he says, and finds himself a little surprised at the sincerity of those words. He hasn’t-- well, he hasn’t really engaged with many people outside of Cass or the people on the board or doctors or lawyers or… anybody not his sister and not somebody he has a professional relationship with in a long while. Not before Vex, really, and now here he is feeling genuinely pretty pleased with a social interaction with one of her friends.

“I’m gonna send you a friend request, if that’s okay?” she says. “That way we can play together again or something?”

“Oh please, go right ahead.” He almost immediately gets a popup for a friend request from voiceofthetempest and he wastes no time accepting. “There.”

“Nice!” Keyleth laughs again and it’s nearly infectious. If he was curious about whether her attitude is something she puts on or how she genuinely is at first, he can tell now just from an hour and a half in voice chat with her that she’s literally just this sort of person: awkward and bright and almost unbearably so, but not… in an unpleasant way, necessarily? “Well, I’m gonna log off. G’night guys!”

Percy and Vex both say their goodbyes and Keyleth’s icon disappears from next to theirs, two little messages in the chat alerting them to her dropping out of the party and leaving the game.

“So,” he says after a moment of silence, leaning back in his chair.

“So,” she echoes, the sound of her unscrewing the cap from a bottle faintly audible from over the line.

“She’s… something,” he says slowly but not unfondly.

Vex laughs at that. “Keyleth? Yeah, she’s a lot. But she’s fun though. And sweet. And super awkward.”

“Ha. Yeah, I got that off of her,” he admits.

“She wasn’t as bad around you though. Usually with new people she’s awful, but she hit it off with you pretty well.”

He raises an eyebrow at that. “Really?”

“Oh, yeah. It was quite a pleasant surprise for me. I was worried things were going to end up being almost unbearably awkward, but that was super fun.”

“I thought we worked pretty nicely together,” he agrees. “And outside of that one really bad moment, she’s fairly good player.”

“At least she doesn’t charge off into the enemy team,” Vex says in the tired voice of a healer who’s been burned by her teammates too many times.

He snorts. “There’s that too.”

They fall into companionable silence for a few moments, Percy taking a swig from his mug only to immediately put it back on the desk and choke down what he tried to drink because, well, two hour old coffee is not great.

She must hear him gag because she asks, “You okay?”

He coughs. “Yeah. I just tried to drink my coffee and forgot it’s been sitting there for a few hours.”

There’s a beat, then she says in a soft voice, “ _You nerd_.”

“Hey!” he says, feigning offense. (Warmth prickles in his chest and-- shit, what is that? It’s gone again before he can figure it out.)

She laughs, loud and clear and warm like sunshine. “I only speak the truth, Percy.”

He rolls his eyes and sighs. “I’ll take your word for it then.”

“Good. You should always take my word. I’m pretty fuckin’ great.”

“You are,” he agrees.

“Well, I think I’m gonna have to call it here tonight too,” she says with a sigh. “You know, since I have to be a responsible adult and get up for work in the morning to make that sweet, sweet cash.”

“Understandable,” he says, a small smile settling across his face. “I probably should go back to filling out the paperwork I was working on anyways.”

“Probably.” After a moment she adds, “Hey, don’t stay up too late, alright? Which is… incredibly hypocritical coming from me, but still.”

(And there it is again, that-- that _warmth_.)

“Don’t worry about me,” he says. (Is it because of her worrying about him? He can’t… he can’t tell.)

“I won’t as long as you don’t overwork yourself,” she shoots back.

“I promise I won’t.”

“Good.” Another moment passes. “And get yourself some fresh coffee if you’re going to work some more, you nerd.”

“Hey,” he says again, but softer this time.

“ _Nerd_.” And with that, Vex leaves the voice chat and the party, leaving him smiling to himself like a dope.

Huh.

He’s about to click out of the game when the chat shows a new message. He rolls his eyes when he sees what it is.

 **bearoness:** nerd :^)  
**DEYOLO:** Haha very funny  
**bearoness:** n e r d  
**DEYOLO:** Good night, Vex.  
**bearoness:** night nerd  
bearoness has left the game.

He sighs and clicks out of the game, sitting back in his chair. Stretching his arms out, he holds back a yawn. No sleep for a while. Not until he finishes a few more sheets, at least, enough to make Cass happy-- or at the very least appease her.

Percy looks at the paperwork in question out of the corner of his eyes, his stomach turning at the thought. He glances back over at his mug.

Well, may as well take Vex’s advice before diving in.

First, coffee.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> surprise! this is still happening. i had to scrap the original 3k word draft of this chapter about a month and half ago because i realized it didn't match well with what i had planed and i just... couldn't move forward with it. so i started fresh. and it kind of demoralized me, but i finally picked myself up and finished this chapter so i can push past it into more fun stuff.
> 
> the de rolos obviously have some pretty traumatic history but it's been resolved in this story already (yay, functioning legal system!) so they're now in the recovery part of dealing with trauma. there won't be much angst about it because this is primarily a fluff fic, but expect some mentions of percy and cassandra dealing with it for the rest of the fic because, y'know, trauma needs to be dealt with.


End file.
